


Let's Stay Together

by ChElFi



Series: Eighteen Anniversary Drabbles [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 18 Drabbles, And Maria's BFF, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anniversary, Captain Hill - Freeform, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, Jasper Sitwell is a goodguy in my story arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3643278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChElFi/pseuds/ChElFi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's old fears have driven a wedge between himself and Maria. He's not really sure sky-diving is the answer, but he supposes if that's what she wants...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Stay Together

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I found myself with a surprise two free hours this afternoon and I thought, gee, I could do the dishes and iron...or I could write. :D I'll pay dearly later, but for now, enjoy this drabble.
> 
> This is from the 18 Drabble Challenge, which in my case takes place in my Shape of Us head-verse where everyone lives happily ever after, with accented times of great pain and suffering in between. Today's word prompt, Blood. This particular story is of their 11th anniversary. Title from the Al Green song.

Steve can feel the blood pulsing through his veins, can barely hear Clint on the comm as Maria leaps into freefall from the lowered ramp of the quinjet. He feels the terror rise up in him as it has a thousand times before today. He tries to clamp down on it, tries to keep his thoughts together and coherent. Sitwell’s slap on his shoulder pulls him out and he looks at the man who gives him a thumbs up. He’s good to go. He has been for too long, Maria is plummeting to the ground without him. Steve leaps after her and tries to concentrate on the sound of the wind whistling around him, instead of the terror that is making his pulse race faster than necessary in this non-emergency situation.

_“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked._

_Maria set her jaw as she turned to glare at him. Their fights were getting worse and Steve wasn’t sure anymore which terrified him the most, losing her again to death, or losing her to his need to keep her safe._

_“Don’t ask me that again,” she said, her voice was terse and she looked as if she was barely containing her ire._

_She walked past him, intentionally bumping against his arm as she did. Steve bit back the retort that leapt immediately to his lips. He wasn’t sure how many more useless arguments their marriage could stand. If he didn’t let her do this, he knew it really would be the final straw. She might not leave him right away, but he knew she couldn’t take much more._

As he dives after his wife, Steve tries not to think about the last jump she took, how it was the last recording he’d had of her voice for what he’d thought would be forever. The comm had cut out when she hit the ground, she still doesn’t like to talk about what had happened after that.

But she's right, she has to get back into it. She can’t let the fear of it control her, she can’t hole up the rest of her life on some private island or even in their modest Long Island home. She isn’t made for that. Like Steve, she is made for the fight, always has been.

Except that in this one situation, Steve doubts himself. He doubts he would ever be able to lose her again.

A movement in the corner of his eye draws his attention from his thoughts. Jasper looks wildly happy.

“She’s doing great,” Jasper hollers over the comm.

“Of course, I am, you idiots,” Maria snaps back.

Then she laughs, an honest-to-goodness laugh, and Steve’s blood races for a different reason. He hasn’t heard her laugh like that since they’d recovered her. It is a laugh that most people have never heard, only Steve and a few of their closest friends. It is the one she reserves for pure joy. He hadn’t even heard it himself until they were on their honeymoon eleven years ago and she had finally released all her fears. It had been then, and still is, the most beautiful sound to him.

Steve finally allows himself a smile, and when they are on the ground, he pulls her into his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I never should have tried to stop you.”

Then he kisses her thoroughly until he hears a noise behind him.

“You know, I understand it’s your anniversary and all, guys,” Jasper says, wrapping up his parachute. “But can you at least wait until the company’s gone?”

Maria smiles and Steve can see in her eyes that things are worlds better now. For a moment he can almost forget why he’d been so afraid in the first place.

Later, Steve’s blood races for yet another reason. His hands and lips explore Maria’s body, her moans and sighs reminding him that this second chance he has is something to make the most of, not something to be locked away and smothered out of fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, off to iron and suffer through another OutlawQueen-less Once Upon a Time episode. Yet, somehow, that's better than facing much of reality. :D


End file.
